Ripe – Hey Hello EP

I’ve been patiently awaiting new music from Ripe after I first saw them live last August at The Bitter End in New York. I wouldn’t be surprised if all of Bleecker Street heard Ripe when they took the stage, that’s how big their sound is. They killed it that night and they’ve outdone themselves with their Hey Hello EP, which was released last month. The band performs at such a high level on Hey Hello though neither the instrumentalists nor the arrangements outshine the power of vocalist Robbie Wulfsohn. No one oversteps his or her bounds, a respectable feat for a young band with so much talent.

The band has endured some personnel changes since they got their start. The current lineup sports two electric guitar players. In this genre it might be wise to swap one of those guitars for a keyboard but that wouldn’t make for the same Ripe. Hey Hello is its own little rock and roll party and for that you need both of those guitars for some in-your-face grit that funk music can sometimes lack.

From the half time stank face-inducing breakdowns of “Talk To The Moon” to the jazzy trumpet solo on “Caralee” these dudes are seriously seriously cool. My only complaint would be that Hey Hello is only four songs long. I still want to hear more. How selfish of me. I confide in the high volume of video content that Ripe has put out to accompany their recordings. This band knows they need to be seen as well as heard. With sick tunes, sick shows and a lucrative distribution strategy spearheaded by their manager Maxx Stofman, Ripe is a triple threat on the indie music scene.

About The Site

No Smoking Media is a regularly updated and hand curated feed of music releases, free from hierarchical judgment and included regardless of press coverage. Our priority is for our readers to discover good, creative music that they might not otherwise hear, and for artists we admire to gain a wider audience and be recognized for their musical excellence.